The Unit of Shoulder and Elbow from Hospital da Luz Lisboa has been obtaining excellent results in the surgical treatment of shoulder SLAP lesions in athletes. A retrospective study , involving athletes and military subject to surgical treatment of this kind of lesions, between 2010 and 2018, has just been published in the May edition of Revista de Medicina Desportiva , by orthopaedists André Barros , Eduardo Carpinteiro (the coordinator of that unit) and Sérgio Gonçalves (Hospital Curry Cabral). The SLAP lesion (Superior Labrum Anterior and Posterior) is frequent in athletes and military, especially in athletes practising modalities that require a specific effort of the shoulder, such as volleyball, handball and baseball. The usual symptoms are pain in the superior and anterior part of the shoulder, especially in activities involving the upper limbs in elevation. The first-line treatment of SLAP lesions is conventional – with non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, corticoid infiltration and physiotherapy – but, in the absence of improvement, the option is surgical intervention, with the possibility of resorting to two techniques: direct labral repair (LR), until recently considered as the standard treatment, and biceps long head tenodesis (BLHT). “SLAP lesion type II isolated in athletes – Labral repair or biceps long head tenodesis – analysis of results and return to play rates”: The cases of 25 patients were studied – 12 of them submitted to labral repair (LR) and 13 to biceps long head tenodesis (BLHT); The rate of return to sports practise was of 100% in both groups; In the BLHT group, the rate of return to the previous level of sports activity was of 70%, against 42% in the LR group; The rates of surgical complications were lower in the BLHT group, compared with the LR group; Conclusions: both techniques have good clinical results at medium and long terms. In the set of patients analysed in this study, the results were higher for BLHT and without reintervention. “The first-line treatment is conventional, but in the absence of improvement, the biceps long head tenodesis (BLHT) is the technique offering better results and less complications”, stresses Eduardo Carpinteiro.
